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Connect Amp keeps dropping out audio

  • 19 September 2023
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Hi I have 4 Connect Amps that have been working fine for some years but just recently they are dropping the Audio for a few seconds which is very annoying. I have spoken to Sonos Support on a few occasions and done everything they have suggested to fix this which they say is WiFi Interference such as switching channels etc but still have problems. This happens on any music source but I have noticed when the speakers go silent the sound levels are still going up and down on the app as if its playing the audio in other words not muted, not sure if this helps identify the problem. I am getting to the point now where soon these will be removed as they just aren't worth the hassle. I have seen a few threads where people have had the same problem but the only answers I have seen are contact Sonos Support.

Has anyone had this problem and got a viable solution??????

Some posts suggest an issue with S2 being introduced so does anyone know if this is a problem??

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Best answer by Ken_Griffiths 20 September 2023, 12:17

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Ken_Griffiths

Besides switching your router WiFi channels, what else have you done to reduce wireless interference, thus far? Have you tried setting WiFi channel-widths to 20Mhz, or giving SonosNet a shot, or even wiring more than one Sonos device back to the router (perhaps with some of the four C:A’s having their WiFi adapters disabled etc?)

It would be quite helpful to know more about your setup, what you have tried yourself and what troubleshooting you’ve done already with Sonos Support.

Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
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If you are seeing volume levels being changed make sure you haven’t enabled anything that would be changing them.

If you suspect it is an external problem change your WiFi password.

If you wait for the problem and send in a diagnostic the Sonos folks can likely give you a better idea about what is going wrong.

You might try wiring one or more of your Amps to Ethernet to see if that helps. Try channels 1, 6 amd 11 to see if any one is better than the others. Pick the best and mover your WiFi to one of the other two.

buzz

On these older units we cannot rule out hardware failure. Likely, only one unit would fail, but don’t expect Mother Nature to be fair. Experiment with powering down one unit at a time. If the system then works OK when unit ‘A’ is powered down, that’s a big hint, but not proof, that ‘A’ has a hardware issue because there could be a specific network issue with ‘A’.

Since you have older units go to http://[address of a player]:1400/support/review and open the Network Matrix at the bottom. Red cells indicate wireless issues. You can go to Settings → System → About My System to fetch an IP address.

AjTrek1
Userlevel 7

If you are using a Sonos Bridge in your setup you should remove it as it is outdated and could be the root cause of your issues.

Here’s the way I suggest to remove the Bridge and still keep the SonosNet.

Wire one of the Connect:Amps back to your router via Ethernet. Wait 5 -10 minutes and remove the Bridge.

As the Connect:Amps are a bit long-in-the-tooth as well there’s no guarantee the above will resolve your issue; but it’s worth a try.

Together Everyone Achieves More = T.E.A.M.
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So far I have tried as suggested by Sonos to give the 5GHz Wifi a different name, turned off auto on 2.4GHz channels so I can force it to be 1, 6 or 11, I haven't tried setting to 20Mhz so will give this a try.

Btw Ken can you give me more advice re your comment “give Sonnet a shot”? I did originally have one C:A hard wired to my switch with ethernet cable and then daisy chained the other 3 C:A’s but this didnt help, do you think it would be better for each C:A to be hard wired to the switch?

B
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I do have the option now of connecting all 4 C:A’s to my router via ethernet through a Netgear switch so maybe thats the next thing to try that way I can disable WiFi and eliminate that its interference and if I still get problems I can look at this being a hardware problem by just running one C:A at a time to see if I get dropouts.

Ken_Griffiths

So far I have tried as suggested by Sonos to give the 5GHz Wifi a different name, turned off auto on 2.4GHz channels so I can force it to be 1, 6 or 11, I haven't tried setting to 20Mhz so will give this a try.

Btw Ken can you give me more advice re your comment “give Sonnet a shot”? I did originally have one C:A hard wired to my switch with ethernet cable and then daisy chained the other 3 C:A’s but this didnt help, do you think it would be better for each C:A to be hard wired to the switch?

SonosNet is where one device is wired to the router (but positioned at least one metre away) - that allows Sonos to use its own in-built wireless mesh signal… so all your other Amps connect back to the wired device either directly or indirectly. If doing that, it’s best to do two further things…

  1. Set the SonosNet channel in the App’s network settings so it is at least 5 channels away from your chosen 2.4Ghz router channel, which should in turn be on fixed channel 1, 6 or 11 and ideally set at 20Mhz channel-width (if the router allows).
  2. Remove the router WiFi SSID from the Sonos App network settings as the local WiFi signal is no longer used and that will stop the Amps trying to hop onto your WiFi signal.

All that said however, the fact you now have the option to wire all to a switch - it makes sense to go with that option instead and you could even choose to switch off the Amps WiFi adapters in the Sonos App to reduce the potential for network loops/storms, but if they do work fine with the WiFi adapters enabled, then I would just leave them - that’s a matter for yourself.

Here are some links that may assist too…

 

B
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Ok latest is I powered down 3 of my 4 units and just had the one I use most running hard wired to the router through my switch and it still gave dropouts so I sent 2 diagnostics to Sonos and they said :

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Thanks, so on this one in specific I can see the audio interruptions are caused because the product basically is old, and it is reaching its capabilities, there are some things that can be done to try to reduce the impact of this, but if it continues this product will need to be replaced with the upgrade program.

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I am being advised to replace any affected units with the Sonos Amp which can be costly.

Would you agree Ken with this assessment, the units are 6 years old and have been constantly powered for all that time so I agree the components may have aged and cause hardware problems but I would have hoped for at least a 10 year life span.

Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
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A lot of us have Sonos gear a lot more than six years old.

I’d call back and try to escalate your issue to a higher level tech.

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Hi Stanley yes agree the gear isn't really old at 6 years but I changed the one in question in any case for a spare that I have thats hardly been used and still have a problem so that was a waste of time, I did think the Sonos guy was just trying to find any reason for the problem to get off the line. I have tried again to change channels using 1, 6 and 11 plus I switched off the 5G but none of them fix the problem so I am really at the end of my tether and looking to maybe dump the Sonos system for something else as its just not usable! I appreciate that the proximity of my neighbours WiFi may be a problem but short of getting them to switch it off I cant see what else I can do!!!!!!

Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
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I had two problem neighbors so I wired as many Sonos to Ethernet as I could, gave me a strong enough signal to all the wireless ones that things worked pretty well.

I really would do a fresh diagnostic and call back, hoping for a better tech.

B
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Hi as suggested I did a new diagnostic and called Sonos support and spent nearly an hour on the phone while the guy I was talking to spoke to his superior somewhere else who could see the interruptions on the system and has now suggested a different reason for the audio drop outs.

He says it’s because my Connect Amps are running out of memory!!

Apparently the reason being that as there have been software upgrades over the years they have taken up more and more memory leaving less for buffering the data.

Sonos proposed solution is to replace the Connect Amp with the newer Amp system!

When I asked how much memory the CA has versus the Amp I couldn’t get an answer plus I can’t find this information on the data sheet!

Anyone have any comments on what Sonos are saying is the problem and the suggested solution which as I have 4 CA’s is an expensive solution?

I did suggest maybe downgrading the software to an earlier version that doesn’t take up as much memory as I don’t want any extra features they may have added as all I do on the system is listen to BBC Sounds but was told this wouldn’t work.

buzz

SONOS staff would be in a better position to comment on memory utilization, but I think that there is a communication issue. If data reaching the player is corrupted or starved and it seems (in the player’s opinion) that the problem can be rectified quickly, the player will mute. If the issue is more severe, the player will abandon the current track and attempt the next track. Obviously, skip a track is not an option for a live stream.

You can find memory availability here.

B
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Still no joy on fixing my drop out problem, I even emailed the CEO Patrick Spence in desperation but he didn’t respond so he’s as good as his ‘expert’ support engineers who are really just call handlers! At the very beginning of this experience I told the support guy that I had hard wired my system to the router before we started diagnosing the problem and coming to the initial conclusion that the problem was wifi interference! Here is a dum question…….if my system is hard wired to the router and the wifi on each Connect Amp disabled how can the problem be wifi interference? It’s got to the situation that I’m looking at the Amazon Echo Link Amp to replace all my Connect Amps especially as they are a lot cheaper! 

Airgetlam

Just curious if you’ve performed a network refresh, with the possibility of duplicate IP addresses somewhere, or did I miss a post that said all these devices have reserved IP addresses in your router?

It’s not uncommon for people (like me!) to put simple duplicate IP addresses in the same bucket as wifi interference , even though it clearly isn’t. It can affect any network, unwired or wired. 

Bruce
buzz

Check for silly things, such as an intermittent network cable. As a test, enable the WiFi. While smaller buffers could make the system more vulnerable to drops when there are communications issues, resolving the communication issues is a good plan. The diagnostics provide a good log of communications issues, if any. Was there any discussion of communication quality while you were working with Support?

B
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Hi Buzz no there wasn't any discussion re quality, by the way would it help to fix the IP addresses? Also does anyone know if I added a boost would that eliminate interference although I think they may be discontinued? As for network refresh I have done multiple refreshes!

buzz

Always reserve IP addresses. 

buzz

From my seat this seems like some sort of communication issue, but this leaves tracks in the diagnostics.

Are you Grouping the players? Try reducing the size of the Group and building the Group in a different order.

Use a network analysis App, and check PING times to the players. Many of these Apps can check for duplicate Ip addresses.

B
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Re reserving the IP addresses I tried to reserve them by changing setting on my hub to always use a specific IP address which I switched to ‘Yes’ but it doesnt seem to save the setting. I assume the hub should recognise the MAC address and then set the IP address that is reserved but as I say it doesnt save the setting to always use the same IP Address!! I have a group of 4 players together!

B
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Btw I have hard wired the unit in question to the router and disabled the wifi

 

buzz

Have you checked the PING times?

When you are using SonosNet and because you have older units, there is a small subset of the diagnostics that you can view. Go to http://[IP address of a player]:/1400/support/review and open the Network Matrix at the bottom. Red cells are drawing your attention to possible wireless communication issues. Note that this a static view. Refresh the page to view current data. Also note that the newest SONOS models do not post data here.

B
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Can you confirm that this is correct http://[IP address of a player]:/1400/support/review

The IP is 192.168.0.72 so I tried http://192.168.0.72:/1400/support/review but it didnt find it

B
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Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
Badge +22

Re reserving the IP addresses I tried to reserve them by changing setting on my hub to always use a specific IP address which I switched to ‘Yes’ but it doesnt seem to save the setting. I assume the hub should recognise the MAC address and then set the IP address that is reserved but as I say it doesnt save the setting to always use the same IP Address!! I have a group of 4 players together!

Dig into your hub’s manual and find a way to get the Sonos speaker MAC to router IP assignment mapping to stick, it is sounding more and more like DHCP may be at the root of your issues.

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